


Good Night (affectionate)

by UnabashedBird



Series: King and Lionheart [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Missing Scene, Secret Relationship, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29173041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnabashedBird/pseuds/UnabashedBird
Summary: After the events of "Ruby Rose," both Ruby and Oz start texting with their favorite corvid.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen & Ruby Rose, Qrow Branwen/Ozpin
Series: King and Lionheart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151699
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Good Night (affectionate)

Qrow was enjoying a quiet drink at the inn where he was staying, when his scroll went off.

And off, and off, and off.

There were exactly two reasons for that to happen, and both required his immediate attention. Either something unexpected, urgent, and Salem-related was going down _right now_ , or . . .

**OMG YOU WON'T BELIEVE**

**I TOTALLY FOUGHT A CRIME BOSS**

**AND I'M GOING TO BEACON**

**AND I LOVE COOKIES**

**WAIT SORRY BUT THE COOKIES WERE REALLY GOOD**

**I MET PROFESSOR OZPIN AND HE SAYS I CAN COME TO BEACON**

**EARLY I CAN COME TO BEACON EARLY**

What.

He pulled up a different thread and started to type, while messages from Ruby continued to come in.

**_oz what the fuck why is Ruby texting that_ **

But before he could finish Ozpin started texting him of his own accord.

**I have now officially met Ruby. Delightful girl with excellent taste, you clearly haven't rubbed off on her too much. And she still likes my cookies.**

Well. That explained the cookies part of Ruby's frantically excited messages.

Sort of.

Also, _totally uncalled for you smug bastard_.

He thumbed back to Ruby's still-increasing thread and found where he'd left off, looking for ammo to get back at Oz for that comment.

**HE SAID I FOUGHT SUPER GOOD**

**HE'S REALLY NICE I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE ALWAYS COMPLAINING ABOUT HIM**

**IS THIS YOUR AUTHORITY ISSUES**

**IS THAT WHY HE CALLED YOU A DUSTY OLD CROW**

Jackpot. Also, _rude_.

**dusty old crow?!?** he sent to Oz.

**Ah.** He could practically hear Oz clearing his throat. **She passed that comment on to you rather quickly, didn't she.**

**_you've never texted with hyperactive teenagers before have you_ **

**I suppose not, come to think of it.**

Qrow screencapped a section of Ruby's messages, making sure to leave out the part where she said Oz was "super nice," and sent it off to him.

**Oh my.**

**_welcome to my world_ **

**This is a frequent occurrence?**

**_yup_ **

**I note that she also chooses to forego punctuation in her text communications.**

**_"text communications" your age is showing old man. how's that for punctuation?_ **

While Qrow was picturing Oz's long-suffering sigh as he decided how to respond to Qrow's fallback petty insult, his scroll rang.

"Hey, kiddo," he answered.

"Uncle Qrow! You haven't been answering my texts! You saw my texts, right?" He had to hold the phone away from his ear to avoid hearing damage from Ruby's happy shouting.

"Yeah, I saw your texts. I don't know if you know this, Ruby, but you didn't exactly leave time for a guy to get a word in edgewise." And also he'd been enjoying himself heckling Oz while he waited for the deluge to slow down.

"Oh, right. Just excited I guess."

"Well I for one never would have guessed that," Qrow deadpanned.

Ruby snorted. "Right, I was being totally subtle. But what do you think?"

"About early admission to Beacon? I mean, if Oz thinks you're ready, then you are. It's kind of his job to be a good judge of crap like that. Congratulations and all that, by the way."

"Thanks."

"Now what was that about a crime boss?"

And with that Ruby was off, giving him a rapid-fire blow-by-blow of her evening. Qrow was torn between amusement at the heart attack this was definitely going to give Tai--Ruby mentioned at one point that she was calling from the ferry, since she figured it would be better to tell Tai and Yang in person--and his own fucking heart attack because she was _fifteen_ , _gods_ , and . . . and some of what she was telling him was pinging his "weird shit to look into" radar. Especially the crime boss' mysterious backup. _Fuck_.

But he kept it together as Ruby wound down her story, dredging up his "fun, cool uncle pretending like he isn't proud of his awesome niece even though he knows that she knows that he totally is" voice. She seemed to buy it.

"Will I see you before classes start?"

Unlikely, given that once he finished what he was working on he was almost certainly going to be snooping around Vale's underworld for a while, trying to figure out if this was normal crime boss shit or Salem-related crime boss shit. "You know how it is, life of an active huntsman. Besides, I was just there for Yang's graduation." A month ago totally counted as "just there."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, just asking."

"Alright, well, you stay safe, you hear?"

"Pfffft, _you_ stay safe, old man."

"Not old. Say hi to Yang and Tai for me."

"Yeah, yeah. Ooh, just saw one of my friends, gotta go, bye!"

Qrow stared at his scroll for a moment, shaking his head, unable to help a small, fond smile. Then he knocked back the rest of his drink, ordered another, and downed that as well before reopening his chat with Oz.

**You care nothing for my aged nerves, nothing at all.**

**Qrow?**

**I do hope something extremely important has come up, otherwise I shall be forced to assume the worst.**

Qrow rolled his eyes.

**_ruby called. kid got tired of waiting for me to text her back_ **

A moment later, **Because she left you such ample opportunity to respond to her barrage of messages.**

**_thats what i said, except like a regular person and not in oz-speak_ **

**You wound me.**

**_i'll make it up to you_ **

**Aren't you still in Mistral?**

**_yeah, but im gonna have to come back as soon as i finish up aren't i_ **

**Ruby described the incident, then?**

**_yeah_ **

**_gave me a fucking heart attack while she was at it_ **

**Behold the pot and its declaration that the kettle is black.**

**_behold the pedantic asshole who sees no irony in accusing other people of being reckless_ **

There was a longer pause before Ozpin's next message.

**Are you all right?**

Qrow scrubbed a hand down his face.

**_dunno how to answer that_ **

**_just worried_ **

**_dont like ruby maybe getting close to this already_ **

**_thought there was more time_ **

**Are you angry with me?**

**_what no_ **

**_i told her, if you say shes ready for beacon then shes ready_ **

**_you know i trust you_ **

**I hope you never forget how sacred I hold that trust.**

He swallowed. Saying something like that over text when it would be at least a week before he could _do_ anything about it was just unfair.

**_i dont_ **

**_but now i am kinda mad at you_ **

**_gonna get you back for it when i see you_ **

Qrow spent the pause while Ozpin parsed his meaning and decided on a response imagining the pretty pink blush he really hoped was currently coloring Oz's cheeks.

**Understood.**

**Good night, Qrow.**

For neither the first nor the last time, Qrow felt a pang at the things he couldn't say, things they'd both agreed were too dangerous for text; he'd honestly already veered probably too close to the line with his "gonna get you back" comment, but Oz had started it this time.

Still. Even though they both knew what "good night" meant ( _I love you, I wish you were here_ ), sometimes he just wanted to type the words.

Sometimes (all the time) he was a total sap was what he was.

Well. Best call it a night before Oz remembered how late it was in Mistral and started giving him shit for it.

**_gnight oz_ **

**Author's Note:**

> I fell down the Ozqrow rabbit hole recently; fic-writing was inevitable. I have lots of ideas but my ability to turn them into words I feel good about posting is sketchy and inconsistent, so the plan is to do mostly short things that I can organize into series. So like this one is basically just fun with canonverse, and includes some headcanons that I'll hopefully flesh out in other fics (like that Ruby has been an unknowing beneficiary of Ozpin's stressbaking over the years; hence his comment that she "still" likes his cookies).


End file.
